Personnel:
Carol Sloane (vcl), Nick Travis (tp), Clark Terry (flh), Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb), Al Klink (fl), Bernie Leighton, Bill Rubenstein (p), Jim Hall, Bucky Pizzarelli (g), Art Davis, George Duvivier (b), Walter Perkins, Sol Gubin (d)
Reference: FSRCD 843
Bar code: 8427328608435
As a young singer, Carol Sloane didn't expect to be one of the biggest hits at the 1961 Newport festival. Introduced on an afternoon program of lesser lights, she so impressed the meager audience there that she was brought back for a full house on a night program. She repeated her success and Columbia Records signed her immediately.
Her main assets were her warmly appealing timbre, good range and secure time, all amply demonstrated in these two albums made in 1961-2. On Out of the Blue, a record with memorable contributions by soloists Bob Brookmeyer, Clark Terry, Nick Travis and Jim Hall, she is backed mostly by Bill Finegan's arrangements. On Live at 30th Street, Carol sings great jazz in an intimate studio atmosphere, on which her natural talents and ebullient musical personality shine through to a set of stellar standards.
In 1963 she said: I want to be one of these persons who have been around a long time, Mission accomplished, her long career has embraced the country's top clubs and regular appearances on TV. Despite a period in the mid 60s when she was groomed for pop by Columbia Records, she is considered today one of the finest jazz singers around. Nat Hentoff wrote in 2004: With all the talk today about new jazz singers, none comes even close to Carol Sloane. This is what jazz is all about.
"After appearing at 1961s Newport Jazz Festival, Sloane signed with Columbia. Her debut, Out Of The Blue, displays her melodic and fresh vocal sound as she interprets songs with skill and understanding. Sloanes second album was recorded at Columbias 30th Street Studio with guests invited to create a nightclub-like setting (there was even a bar) and the result satisfactorily proves that the singers excellent first album was no fluke.
There is so much here that merits praise: It Never Entered My Mind, Love Walked In, Taking A Chance On Love, and Ellingtons In A Sentimental Mood and Dont Get Around Much Anymore are all given superlative readings with a wholly supportive backing group. Among the best jazz singers, Sloane was poorly served by the industry and the last two tracks demonstrate Columbias attempt to make her something she wasnt.
After these two albums were recorded Sloanes career took her in and out of music. Fortunately, she persevered in her love for quality songs, intimate settings and jazz, continuing to perform in and around New York and returning to the recording studio from time to time to vividly demonstrate the extraordinarily high standard of her work. Later albums, especially The Real Thing (1990), with Phil Woods, two tribute albums, The Songs Carmen Sang (1995) and Dearest Duke (2007), and most recently Well Meet Again (2010), are all five-star jazz albums. This excellent Fresh Sound reissue of her earliest work deserves to be on the same shelf."
—Bruce Crowther (February 2015)
Jazz Journal Magazine
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"Carol Sloane, who made a strong impression with her performance at the 1961 Newport Jazz Festival, shortly after recorded her first album (originally on Columbia) [...] At the time, her voice sounded a little like Ella Fitzgerald's in spots, but Sloane's own personality frequently pops through. She mostly sticks to ballads, along with an occasional swinger, on this set, and the only partly identified band is mostly confined to a quiet supporting role by arrangers Bill Finegan and Bob Brookmeyer. After recording a second album for Columbia, Sloane would slip into obscurity until her rediscovery (at first by the Japanese) in the late '70s but, as this reissue shows, Carol Sloane was a highly appealing singer from the start."
—Scott Yanow (All Music Guide)
